ECF Game 4 May 29th At Cleveland 8:00 PM

Terribly irritating loss tonight. In spite of a catastrophic second quarter, the Pistons were still in it, only down 7 at the half. Cleveland's patented third quarter meltdown, plus some inspired play by Dice, got the Pistons up going into the 4th and in perfect position to bring it home. But then a MASSIVE CHOKE down the stretch handed a big lead to the Cavs, followed by Cleveland trying desperately to give the game away with multiple bad shots and turnovers...only for CB to commit three unforgivably stupid mistakes in the final minutes to drive the stake into the Pistons' hearts.

Pistons actually outrebounded Cleveland tonight, and kept the turnover numbers down overall (just 12 for the game), but made Gibson and Gooden look like HOFers. We can still pull this out in 7, but it sure looks like they can start getting the parade route ready in San Antonio again.

I agree about the bad calls. James takes 5 steps and gets the foul call. Could have been a clear path on James when he appeared to throw Billups to the floor on a break-away. Sheed gets the same foul as Gibson but its non-shooting for us. And I am pretty sure that the refs are supposed to stop play when a toy ball rolls onto the floor.

Still if the Pistons had played 4 complete quarters, which they have not done yet in the this series, they would have swept this thing. Now its going to be a grind it out while SanAntonio rests.

Ills of the regular season following the Pistons here. Your habits follow you in. Turning it on and off so many times and they appear to not know whats going on at times.

Man Webber is killing US!!!!!!! In so many discreet ways he absolutely killing us.........

He's too slow to stay with Gooden so we put him on Z, which allows Z to have some meaningful production early.

If we started Sheed on Z, dude gets zip.

He can't rotate or defend the P&R.

It's obvious that Clev goal is to involve Webb in P&R's a-la Shaq, because he's too slow to hedge and recover, and he darn sure can't switch out.

We are trying so hard to get him going that a 5th starter gets froze out.

It seems as if we've forgotten how to move the ball and make the extra pass so it seems as if that throughout the game we play, "It's your turn". We try to force Webber's turn and he flat out does not deliver, but it means that one of the 5 starters doesn't get a turn.

Not to dog Webb, but in this series he's ineffective. Cleveland is a big team and there are very few passing lanes out of the post and they are not doubling him, and he's not knocking down J's consistently. That fifth starter needs to be a player who doesn't need a play called for him to be effective- MAX SHOULD START GAME 5, and the the rest of the playoffs for that matter. Dyess needs to be the 6th man and Davis should get the spot mins. I'm totally convinced that Webber can't deliver what this team needs to advance and ultimately win a championship, he's becoming too big of a defensive liability, and giving him the ball just means one less touch for the core, who need as many touches as they can get in order to get a rhythm.

Let me say that the problem with the Pistons is the same arrogant problem I see in some of yall posters. the Cavs are getting no credit and while some of yall are waiting to see what float goes down the riverwalk, it may not even matter if we lose game 5.

- Flip had a chance to be in a new league 2 nite. instead of being closer to pop, he's falling back closer to Sam Mitchell. He has not won ONE key playoff game in the last 10 years. AND no i dont consider home wins or Game 3 wins KEY wins. If yall think he's gonna do or say anything bby Thursday to fire this team up,....jehhheh right!

- Spurs WILL NEVER be in this position vs an inferior team. NEVER. They put the Suns away when they were 'weaker' and will show us what Game 5 is all about.

- Chauncey can kiss where the sun rarely shines!!! When u talk mess and dont back it up, then u got a prob with me. And Rip stating "IT means more to them than it does to us" would never be uttered if LB was here. The legacy of their carrer , if it means anything to them , will be settled in the next 96 minutes of basketball.

- Sheed giveth. Sheed giveth some more. Why fire up the crowd by tossing your headband, u big anatomy!!?? Then he basically ran from Gooden on the flagrant foul. I can think of 5 Pistons that would have swung back: zeke, horn, Lamb, Vinnie and salley. (Worm was kinda Varajeo like) Sheed needs to play 32 minutes of UNbelieevable ball Thursday.

- McDyess vs Webber. I figured by now he would have nothing left. But our coach has 4 fresh legs of center on the bench in DD and Nazr who could come in and wreck havoc for at least 10 min a game. But we aint got that kind of coach. Webber's career in Michigan will be decided in game 5 and 7. Dyess on the other hand, should have a 16 and 10 in him for game 5. If just ACTS like he's going in the paint, it changes evrything. I wish Mickey could manage us Thursday.

_ Delfino needs minutes, like Max. I really believe they could have been difference makers , if they felt their coach 'truly' believed that.

Where do I start...other than we in trouble if you believe in momentum. The Cavs now have a chance to sweep the hard way. But we still got two home games and boy do we need some home town karma. I know we can't wear the red uniforms, but the Pistons need to give out some Blue Stop Labron T-Shirts., heck some Stop Gibson shirts too for the little fans.

Gooden was open all night and regained his touch and Gibson was a thorn in the side of every Piston especially in the second qtr when Labron was resting up for his potential 4th qtr heroics.

We have not had a lead bigger than 5 points in this whole series and once again we could not extend it beyond 4 tonight. Everytime we had a chance to go up 5 or 6, they could not get a stop or extend it. once again the overall stats were even with the turnover and assists even. We even out rebounded them to the tune of 40-34 including a 10-3 edge on the offensive boards.

Why did we lose??? Well collapses in both the 2nd and 4th qtr, but 4th was the most significant since we has a 2 point lead went up by 4 before the collapse. However there four huge questionalble plays in the 4th and all were by Mr Big [strike]Shot[/strike] Choke!

1)First the off balanced three when we were up by 77-76. Wasn't needed.
2)Then after Dice blocked Donyell shot and gave it to CB, he somehow fumbled it out of bounds. Gooden scored on the behind the back dish from Labron.
3)then the drive to the hoop and then passing off to.....Gooden for the TO. Why didn't he just continue to the hoop and try to get an and 1 opportunity???
4) Finally with Pistons down by three with 44 seconds left, he throws up another 3 ball instead of either driving around James to the hoop or passing to Rip on the wing.

Somebody got a video of Dumars and Flips expressions when he tossed up that last three???? 2/9 tonight from the 3 and 2/8 on Sunday. Why doesn't the guy penetrate and pass to an open man near the bucket instead of 3 ball attempts???????

There were some very bad calls in this game. I tried to be objective. I honestly didn't count one bad call that went against the Cavs. The Pistons got screwed a lot tonight. Having said that, none of those calls were the reason we lost this game.

Not to dog Webb, but in this series he's ineffective. Cleveland is a big team and there are very few passing lanes out of the post and they are not doubling him, and he's not knocking down J's consistently........

Good post HQ. I rarely read through long posts (I skim them), but yours was interesting. Lots of good points and I agree with you on much of it. I like what you said about the arrogant posters. There is definitely a sense of entitlement here.

One thing though...Flip was the coach when we won a key game 6 on the road in Cleveland last year.

The Pistons will win or lose. We have absolutely no control over the situation, so people need to try not to take it so hard. The sun will likely rise tomorrow, and if it doesn't it will have nothing to do with the Pistons losing tonight.

The optimistic take on CWebb coming into this series was that the quickness of the Bulls' front line was a problem that he wouldn't have against the slower Cavs. But he's still not producing anything. Doesn't look like he can produce much of anything against the league's elite teams in the playoffs.

The optimistic take on CWebb coming into this series was that the quickness of the Bulls' front line was a problem that he wouldn't have against the slower Cavs. But he's still not producing anything. Doesn't look like he can produce much of anything against the league's elite teams in the playoffs.

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He's too slow to keep up with Gooden

He's to slow to keep up with SIde Show Bob

He's too slow to rotate out to Marshall at the arc

His post defense against Z is deplorable, he ALLOWS!!!! the 7'3" Ilgauskas to catch the ball too deep, nor does he recover when Z picks and pops.

Not to dog Webb, but in this series he's ineffective. Cleveland is a big team and there are very few passing lanes out of the post and they are not doubling him, and he's not knocking down J's consistently........

-same thing vs Bulls

-same thing vs cavs

-same thing vs Spurs

at some point that will come to bite us where Jaws knew us..

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Unfortunately for us is that when Webber does play decent, it is every other game, so lets hope he shows up Thursday.

There were some very bad calls in this game. I tried to be objective. I honestly didn't count one bad call that went against the Cavs. The Pistons got screwed a lot tonight. Having said that, none of those calls were the reason we lost this game.

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Then HOW did we get screwed Jam? Thats like Bob Knight's comment on rape. The refs did not make Billups do a damn thing. The refs did not make Rip and Sheed miss big FT's. the refs did not hold Cavs to under 40 points in 2nd half while our sorry butts couldnt score 50!!....and so on